Chinese internet portal Sohu.com has announced $40.2 million in second quarter profit, up 600% over the same quarter in 2007. The news comes in the wake of results posted by Chinese search engine Baidu, which saw profits rise 87% in Q2 2008. The big boost in profits for both companies come as the 2008 Beijing Olympics approach. Check out this display ad from Lenovo on the Sohu.com . "The growing momentum reflects the overall expansion of the China Internet market,

Microsoft's recently acquired Navic Networks has announced a new partnership with Mediabrands, a new group of four companies: Initiative, Universal McCann, MAGNA and IPG's Emerging Media Lab. The media companies will have access to Navic's Admira, a national media planning tool that includes audience behavior data and real-time viewership reporting. "We are seeking new technologies to deliver unparalleled accountability to clients,

One of the people that you will want to hear speak at SES San Jose is Liana Evans of KeyRelevance. Li is the director of Internet marketing at KeyRelevance and a member of the "Successful Tactics for Social Media Optimization )SMO(" panel on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, at 1 p.m. I'm bummed out because I'll be speaking at the "News Search SEO" session at the same time, so I won't be able to hear what she has to say in San Jose. So,

Cuil , pronounced "cool." has officially launched. All the kool kids are talking about it. The question is whether anyone will use it. As a new search engine, Cuil is a longshot. It's no Google Killer. Check out Cuil.com . Google needs the competition. But don't expect a revolutionary search experience. The results page looks very much like Guy Kawasaki's Alltop.com . Cuil was created by former Google engineers Anna Patterson, Russell Power and Louis Monier,

Billing itself as a "Super Search Engine,"IAC's RushmoreDrive.com has announced a 2009 Range Rover Sport Sweepstakes. RushmoreDrive.com, the new search engine for the Black community from Barry Diller's IAC )InterActiveCorp( announced its Range Rover Sport Drive Away Sweepstakes at the Michael Baisden LIVE event held at the Nokia Theatre in New York City. Surprisingly, there's no mention of the Sweepstakes on the search engine's home page or media pages. RushmoreDrive.

Randy Pausch delivered the "Last Lecture" after he learned that he'd developed terminal pancreatic cancer. His video became an Internet sensation, with over 3,000,000 views on YouTube. Pausch was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Randy Pausch died today at the age of 47. We've written a great deal about the education of a search engine marketer. Ron Jones's column, SEM.edu ,

Monitor, monitor, on the wall, "Who's the most Internet Famous of them all?" Wired.com has launched a new, free service for everyone who wonders how Internet famous they currently are. It's called the " Celebrity Meter ." It won't tell you how whether you have celebrity friends, but it will let you know - in rough numbers - how much of an online celebrity you are. Wired's Celebrity Meter launched in beta this morning.

While Google is busy rolling out a PageRank update , Microsoft is researching what they hope will be the next big thing in search: BrowseRank. The technology takes user browsing habits into account when determining relevant search results. We propose computing page importance by using a 'user browsing graph' created from user behavior data. In this graph, vertices represent pages and directed edges represent transitions between pages in the users' web browsing history.

After the latest round of attempted negotiations with Yahoo and investor Carl Icahn, Microsoft is once again saying that it is moving on from trying to acquire the second-place search engine. Addressing the attendees at Microsoft's financial analyst meeting, Ballmer explained Microsoft's Plan B for building search and competing with Google. And like Joel McHale on E!'s The Soup, I've read the transcript so you don't have to. Here are the sound bites. First up,

Compete has enhanced its Web analytics product features to include a breakout between organic search traffic and paid search traffic. Compete just announced Paid vs. Natural Search Breakouts in Search Analytics. This new metric takes an even deeper dive into competitive search data by showing the percentage of search referrals that a Web site receives from paid search, trended over the last six months.

Google's head of web spam, Matt Cutts, has announced that updates to PageRank will be visible in the coming days. Cutts also said that some existing penalties will be expired with the update. If you're new to search engine marketing and want to learn about PageRank, here's a whole slew of posts to get you in the know: Google PageRank: Simplified Google PageRank isn't the Same as Ranking in Google Should You Join the PageRank Hysteria? Thankful for PageRank Updates,

Local advertising is a key component of any vertical search marketing strategy. In today's vertical search column, " The Local Advertiser of Today and Tomorrow ," Gregg Stewart discusses staying on top of the competition now and preparing for the future.

Bidding on trademarked kewyords may bring big conversions, but the strategy is often perceived to carry a grand amount of legal trouble with it. In today's link building column, " Trademarked Terms: Guaranteed Conversions, Guaranteed Controversy ," Frank Watson explores whether or not bidding on competitors trademarks is a worthy strategy.

When it comes to link building, a great source for links might be right under your nose! In today's link building column, " Link Building with Customers ," Justilien Gaspard talks about asking your customers for links as well as embarking on link recovery missions.

Microsoft Senior Vice President Satya Nadella announced at the company's financial analyst meeting that their partnership with Facebook has been extended to include search. The existing partnership has Microsoft serving up banner and sponsored ads on the popular social network. Last year, Microsoft paid $240 million to own a 1.6% stake in Facebook, a private company. Microsoft expects Facebook members to see the integrated Live Search, including search ads,

Leading mobile advertising provider AdMob has announced brand spanking new advertising solutions designed specifically for the iPhone. Advertising options will be made available for both branding and performance and function in both browser and native applications . Have an app you want to promote? AdMob is giving away a total of $1 million in advertising to iPhone developers wanting to market their applications.

In May, Google announced a new initiative called Friend Connect that enables site owners to add social media to their websites, and allows internet users to connect their social accounts more seamlessly. But while Facebook was initally part of the effort, later they banned Google's Friend Connect from their site, citing issues with privacy and the redistribution of user data. Instead of waiting for Google to comply,

Knol is knowledge without the W)ikipedia( and an edge. Knol is the newest product launched by Google. The Wikipedia competitor is in beta. Get ready for Knollywood. Knol is basically Blogspot on steroids, organized by topic. Google states the key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an identified author )or group of authors(. It's their knol, their voice, their opinion. Google expects multiple knols on the same subject. With Knol,

Jason Lynn, Director of Solutions Engineering for Yahoo/Right Media is exiting the Sunnyvale search engine to become Executive Vice President of Product Management at online advertising network interCLICK. Prior to his Yahoo/Right Media stint, Lynn was Director of Product Management at behavioral targeting firm TACODA, which was acquired by AOL in July 2007 . That's the same month Yahoo finalized its acquisition of Right Media . Lynn joins an exodus of Yahoo execs as of late.

Google , Microsoft and Yahoo may have disappointed Wall Street, but Baidu is proving to be a Dark Knight in this tough economy. Boosted by advertising sales in advance of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese search engine posted an 87% jump in profits in the second quarter of 2008. Net profit came in at $38.6 million, beating expectations of $35.5 million. Baidu owned 63% of the search market in China, accoring to iResearch. Google had 26% and Yahoo came in third at 8%.